This invention relates generally to data networking systems and, more specifically, to data communication systems for use with distributed generation networks.
Providing information delivery infrastructure, i.e. xe2x80x9cnetworkingxe2x80x9d, is rapidly becoming big business throughout the world. Some estimates project the networking business to grow to $2.3 billion dollars annually by the year 2003. Many players, including cable television infrastructure companies, telephone and cellular telephone infrastructure companies and even electric utilities, are rapidly entering the networking market. A common business strategy is to offer a variety of bundled services to consumers, including television, radio, telephone, internet access, home shopping, home security, and remote medical monitoring services. While there is no standard communication infrastructure, examples of some in use today include telephone lines, electric power lines, fiber optics, ethernet networks, wireless communication, infrared communication links, lasers, satellites and coaxial cables. Cable television companies are trying to become telephone service providers, while telephone companies are trying to provide cable television service.
In parallel with this growth in networking, electric utilities are becoming deregulated. Whereas a single company used to generate, transmit, distribute and market electricity, these xe2x80x9clegacy utilitiesxe2x80x9d are being broken into generation companies, transmission and distribution companies and energy marketers. As of summer 2000, public utilities in over one half of the states have experienced deregulation. Consequently, some electric utilities are beginning to diversify by offering xe2x80x9cenergy management servicesxe2x80x9d in addition to raw electric energy. These services may include prepaid energy, the ability to turn on and off appliances in the home from a remote location, and some basic data transfer options through power lines. As deregulation threatens to trim profit margins, utilities want to offer new services to customers to add both value and revenue.
All three entities, telephone companies, cable companies, and utilities have difficult challenges to overcome to be high volume networking companies. Telephone companies, are limited by speed and bandwidth. When telephones were first designed, the engineers know that when people talked, the pauses between words were often longer than the words themselves. Thus, physical telephone lines were designed to xe2x80x9cswitchxe2x80x9d to lines where people were talking while others were pausing. Thus, there is a finite capacity of physical xe2x80x9cconnectibilityxe2x80x9d for phones. When computer modems came about, computers needed a direct connection and modems thus generated a base tone to keep the phone network from switching. As a consequence, the phone lines could not switch and the finite capacity became even smaller. Fully twenty-five percent of today""s telephone infrastructure still includes these analog switches. When that capacity is filled by users, no new users can be accommodated.
Cable companies on the other hand, must deal with the issue of the xe2x80x9creverse pathxe2x80x9d problem. Cable networks were designed to deliver information one-way: from the television station to your home. The internet, on the other hand, requires data to flow in two directions, both to and from the computer. The only way to accommodate this two-way communication is to design special amplifiers to send the reverse signal upstream. The problem is that, as cable networks are designed as a hub and spoke system, problems with an amplifier in one spoke can compromise the entire wheel.
The utility is at a distinct disadvantage because it does not have an infrastructure across which to transmit large amounts of data. Utility lines connect to large, oil-filled power transformers to step-up and step-down voltage levels. As utility company can only xe2x80x9cpiggybackxe2x80x9d data on top of electric power, these transformers limit data transmission to much slower rates.
There is thus a need for an improved data networking device.